President Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama launched Let Girls Learn, a powerful new initiative to help girls stay in school across the world through community-focused efforts supported by nearly 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers in 60 countries. “Through this effort, Peace Corps will be supporting hundreds of new community projects to help girls go to school and stay in school—everything from after-school mentoring to girls’ leadership camps, to entrepreneurial projects,” explained Mrs. Obama. These will not be top-down projects from an office thousands of miles away—instead, the solutions will come from local leaders, families, and the girls themselves. (While I wish the name for this initiative was less passive for girls (the “let” part is troubling), working from the grassroots is terrific and empowering).

First Lady Michelle Obama and President Obama are championing girls’ education around the world (Photo: The White House)

Yesterday at the White House, President Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama launched Let Girls Learn, a powerful new initiative to help girls stay in school across the world through community-focused efforts supported by nearly 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers in 60 countries. “Through this effort, Peace Corps will be supporting hundreds of new community projects to help girls go to school and stay in school—everything from after-school mentoring to girls’ leadership camps, to entrepreneurial projects,” explained Mrs. Obama. These will not be top-down projects from an office thousands of miles away—instead, the solutions will come from local leaders, families, and the girls themselves.

The President and the First Lady spoke about this initiative on March 3 in the East Room of the White House (Photo: Chuck Kennedy/The White House)

Across the world, the reasons for the disparity in education varies: some families cannot afford the school feeds, or the local school doesn’t have a girls’ restroom, or going to school puts the girls are risk of kidnapping or murder by men who want to stop them from learning. Studies have shown that when girls are better educated, they’re more likely to delay marriage, their future children are more likely to be healthier, and their family has a more secure financial future—which, in turn, boosts the national GDP, according to President Obama, if you somehow weren’t convinced already.